Living life in Beijingcity

NOTE: I WROTE THIS BACK IN EARLY JANUARY, BUT JUST POSTED IT NOW (GOT LOST IN NEAR PUBLICATION LAND)

Somewhat out of the blue, I got pulled into a 4 day, half-way-round-the-world, carbon-intensive journey to Beijing and back. Departed last Monday night, and returned on Friday morning, meaning I arrived in Beijing on Wednesday morning (no January 3rd, 2012 for me), and left Friday evening, but arrived Friday morning (via my Delorian-cum-Airbus time travel machine!).

Alexis's quick conclusions about Beijing:
1) People in Beijing love to smoke. They smoke outside, inside, everywhere. Ergo everywhere stinks of smoke. Bleh.
2) For "some reason", I kept getting calls every evening around 9pm in Mandarin. While I tried to explain to the woman (yes, it was always a woman) on the other end that I didn't speak Chinese, she kept talking to me. Eventually I gave up on the phone call. I later figured out (via business cards put in my door) and conversations with others that in fact these were "massage" offers. Thrilling. And at a supposed 5-star hotel!
3) The taxi drivers in Beijing are insane. I will admit that I'm a pretty aggressive driver, but these guys (and gals) made me look like a doddering slowpoke. I had one trip through the utterly traffic ridden city doing about 80km/hr with about 6 feet in front of us, 6 feet behind us and cars all around, while changing directions without signalling. It was sort of like doing a high speed parallel parking exercise with no signalling and squealing brakes. It made me ill. And there were not seatbelts. So I eventually looked sideways and accepted that I was in god's hands. Oh - and thank god for cell phones because they have no idea of what's located where in the city (perhaps not surprising when the city keeps growing at the current rate...I suppose I feel for taxi drivers in Calgary).
4) Because of #3, pedestrians are a brave, brave lot in Beijing. Traffic signals for pedestrians are somewhat meaningless because cars rule the city. With a green light for walking, it means "LOOK OUT FOR CARS" just as much as a red light. Beware.
5) Starbucks and KFC have completely taken over the Chinese. And while we in North America seem to really like our Subway restaurants, it would appear that the Colonel's secret recipe has addicted the entire population of China - they're quire ubiquitous. Starbucks, on the other hand, while not quite some well established, has managed to plunk a capitalistic US emblem right smack dab at the base of Tienanmen Square. Coffee tasted the same (a bit burnt) and costed the same (too expensive)...but at least they had free internet!
6) People in Beijing don't seem to understand the concept of thin ice (or are braver than we Canadians are). Or possibly wear drysuits beneath their regular clothing. What about "open water", "holes", "some ice" and "people walking on it" doesn't go together? It was like watching people on the Rideau Canal in early November. Could have been exciting if I'd stuck around. I was also wondering about the holes that were already in the ice...hmm...?
7) The subway system. Gotta give 'em credit - it's pretty great. It was cheap (about $0.30 each way), efficient, easy to understand, follow...and it even had lots of arrows pointing the way to get onto the subway, off of the subway, up the stairs, down the stairs, etc. Lots of guidance for a population that last time guided onto public transit using elbows and fingernails. Nevertheless, it worked smooth as a baby's bottom and is pretty impressive.
8) Harbin - the ice capital of the world. Who knew it was a giant tourism destination for people all over the world!? Not me. I suspect not most people. But they did have a 60 foot high ice sculpture and lots of fireworks.
9) Lastly, I have come to realize that while North Americans (and Europeans) largely seem to watch: Basketball, football (both kinds), tennis, hockey, nascar (?@*#*!?), and the odd other thing (Olympics, Tour de France, etc.), the Chinese pick up every other sport in the world. Regularly televised ping pong, badminton, diving, hammer throw, and you-name-it seems to be on the tube all the time. CCTV is quite the TV station.

So - voila, some memoirs of China for all to enjoy.

Back into the blogzone - the near-final house layout

Righty - I'm back in the blogzone - the zone between a beer at 8pm and the time to actually put up a post.

So what have a learned in the past 24 hrs about the house? Well - a few things:
1) We're actually closing in on a final design. Here's what it's looking like at present:

So - let me walk you through things: Starting on the left image at the bottom...

The front of the house has a series of windows and enters in on the ground level. The front door is in the bottom left (SW corner). Beside it is a closet, with a landing and a couple of stairs down to the main living area. To the right are the stairs leading upstairs. Looking out in front of you, there's the kitchen and off to your right is the main floor bathroom (full bathroom). Beyond those are the living room/family room/dining room - which is all open concept. At the back will be a full glass back end (8' high windows/doors) with two fixed glass panels and two doors (8' opening). We're guessing that there will be some storage on the walls, along with some storage possibly under the stairs. You can also see on here a set of dashed lines (tightly dashed and loosely dashed). The tightly dashed ones are our fancy new steel reinforcing beams...ooh black steel you say? You bet. We're high rollers. These will drop below our exposed wood joists (see last entry) and sit at roughly 9'. The loosely dashed lines are the new foundations that we need to add (ugghhh). Yep - those are the non-sexy expensive shit that you need to add so your house doesn't fall down (psshhaw..."fall down"...details). 

Upstairs (the right hand image), leads you to the landing which is currently an office/guest bedroom. It will be my primary work area which will have a good amount of light via some big windows. The thinking is that this will be able to be converted (when needed) to a guest bedroom - so for all of you reading this that's where you'll be when you come to visit! We're not walling it in for now, so we'll probably put some kind of privacy screen / curtain, etc. to provide the necessary privacy. Going right from the top of the stairs, there's the bathroom (right) and mechanical room and laundry room (left). We've had to extend the size of the mechanical room (as you see in red) to make sure we've got the necessary room for all of the equipment...and if we need more space we've got some of the area under the stairs and/or the attic. If we don't use the space in the mechanical room, we'll just use it for linen. Continuing on, there's the second bedroom (straight ahead). That's going to be the kid's room. On the left is the master bedroom, with...wait for it...a freakin' WALK-IN closet! I can't say that I thought we could squeeze in a walk-in in a house this small, but we've managed it. In fact, despite going over budget, I think we've actually managed to put in the vast majority of the things we'd hoped for at the beginning of this. We'll see how much we regret that in time! The rest of the master bedroom...walk out (glass slider) to a second level deck that is above the new extension. We probably won't build this immediately (being totally out of money), but it shouldn't be hard to do at a later point as necessary.

So - that's the general layout...what do you think!?

2) Contemporary/modern doors are tough to find in Canada!

For some god-unknown reason, it seems that the vast majority of people seem to like stupidly ugly doors with weird notching in it? Which ranges (in my opinion) from ugly...

...to absolutely hideous...

 or this...

It's like a giant ugly competition. I'm spoilt for choice of ugly.

In all honesty, front doors are ridiculous. Google them and you'll see! You find images like this:

Seriously??? A giraffe coming through your front door? "Honey, who's at the front door?", "Oh, just Fred Jones, the  Jehovah's Witness Giraffe". Really, who thinks up these things? And moreover, where can I rent a giraffe for a photo shoot?!

Google "ugly doors" and you get this:

I mean really... what's wrong with humans. First we make ugly doors, then we breed cats to have no fur. We should be ashamed.

But back to realty (ooh that rant felt good!).

So, what kind of doors DO I like. Simple, clean, elegant and timeless. Examples? Voila.

 Simple - elegant and pleasing. No need for silly lines or etching. Just a door.

If I'm looking for something more modern and contemporary, here's what I'm thinking:



Again - simple, and pleasing. Much more reasonable. And no giraffes or bald cats to boot. Weird thing about this particular door (from Crestview Doors) is that it's crazy cheap - a couple of hundred dollars even with a double glazed glass area (which raises another beef - "double glazed" ...when I think of "glazing" I think cake glazing...I don't think of "number of panes of glass". Why don't they call it "double paned"??). I'm guessing it's crap, but heck, it looks nice! The other one above is from Masonite and is a fiberglass door - and looks like quality (great R-value, looks good, well built). Might very well be the one we go with in the end.

3) Awesome website for US-Canada cross border shopping. As I get further into this, I'm increasingly realizing that there are so many deals to be had in the US. Not sure what they do down there, but they just seem to make things cheaper! This site is SUPER useful for all sorts of info on calculating duty, figuring out exemptions, etc. Check it out.

Ok. That's probably enough for now. Make these things too long and nobody read's 'em. Night all!

Toronto Design Scene: who knew?

A special travel-edition of my blog from the past few days in TO. Who knew that my home of nigh-ten years is all grown up? When I left Toronto a little over three years ago, it definitely had some solid roots in the design scene: institutions like OCAD have ensured that. But with the building boom of the past decade, it would seem like things have shifted into the mainstream. From the completion of the Liebskind-inspired ROM and the Gehry-driven AGO to Mississauga's (I know...MISSISSAUGA!?!) "Marilyn Munrow Towers" I've been impressed with the world-class architectural additions of late. But perhaps even more impressive is the emergence of the interior and industrial design scene throughout the city.

For the past few years, there's been a publication called Design Lines - almost like a free, quarterly, Toronto-specific design mag that also doubles as a great reference guide for shopping in the city. They identify various design-hubs in the city (Queen E/W, King E/W, the Junction, Ave-Dav, Caledonia) and provide brief reviews, hours, etc. Gotta admit to being jealous that Van doesn't have an equivalent (the Make it Local publication isn't quite the same - though still good).

So - highlights/fave stores:
1) Mjolk (pronounced Mi-yelk, and meaning...go figure..."Milk" in Swedish) - it's a Scandinavian-inspired higher-end design shop. The interior falls somewhere between a gallery, a sauna (without the heat - its got a lot of wood), and a gift shop, and the products range from furniture to kitchen utensils and jewelry. Saw an awesome set of tongs and a very cool built-in drain rack.


Choice items: 

Scissors/kitchen tool

Sori Yanagi Perforated tongs

Hand hammered Yukihira Pot

2) Made - a Canadian-design store that has more interior furnishings (lights, chairs, credenzas - aka ground-level cabinets with legs, etc.) Some very cool stuff and the owners were lovely. In particular - have a look in their catalogue at the credenza by Heidi Earnshaw, the live-edge side tables by Deanne Lehtinen, the lamps by Propellor Design, and the pendant lamp by Rob Southcott.

3) Stylegarage - another Canadian company that's sort of like a high-end version of Nood (or a higher-high end version of Ikea). Great design: clean, simple, modern, natural, and sustainable...that's what I'm all about!



Lots of neat stuff, but we thought we might be able to steal the concrete table idea...





And again....was going to post more here, but decided that more frequent was better than more comprehensive! So, that's it for now.

Back from a Solar Decathalon...a what???

Wow - how time flies when you're busy. So, apologies for the lack of postings over the past week - I was down in Washington DC for work and so the house was on the back burner. First, a few observations about DC:

1) I'm loathe to admit it, but I think DC may, in fact, be the most cycling-friendly city. I don't mean the car drivers (they're mean, nasty beasts nearly everywhere on the planet) but rather the cycling infrastructure. In addition to a pretty big (and popular!) bike share program, there are a zillion bike lanes and tons of dedicated trails throughout not just "the District" (as the locals call it), but the surrounding Greater DC area. It's impressive...and so I packed my folding bike (my beloved Brompton - there will be a full dedicated blog on that at some point, including love poetry).
2) DC is more fun that I ever used to give it credit for. I can't say I like the weather (sticky is an understatement in the summer), but I do like its left-leaning vibe, the copious amounts of Ethiopian restaurants, a generally young, intelligent and informed populace, and the international flavour it has (despite being pretty whitewashed overall). While I'm not a big fan of the racial divide that clearly exists (all servers, cab drivers, wage-earners are either black, latino, or from MENA - yes, I'm acronymizing you). Other pluses are the cherry blossoms in the spring (though we've got that one covered here in VCBC - my friend Tim's term for Vancouver - which he seems convinced will earn him a mint one day...perhaps not now that I've published his genius online), the free museums (the Smithsonian...which goes by a singular, but in fact is a range of museums, zoos, etc. - confusing eh?)
3) As an example of the above, this past weekend had a "Solar house" theme to it. In addition to there being a city tour of "solar houses" - which was really just code for "green homes" - they also had this thing on down at by the Mall (the giant strip of grass in front of the White house that lines up all of the various monuments) called a "Solar Decathalon" (who comes up with these names???!). This time, however, there was a decent reason - these houses, which were entries from about 20 different universities throughout the world (Canada's entry was from the University of Calgary), were indeed "solar powered" and had to meet ten different requirements (ergo "decathalon" I'm assuming). It was a pretty cool event, and I toured about 7 or so of the houses on Friday when I had a couple of hours I could squeeze out of my week. Some neat designs - lots of heat exchange systems, massive insulation, air tight houses, passive solar orientation, and a few fancy bells and whistles to boot. I could go on (I'll fill in the details on the pics below later), but its getting late and I want to post about the other significant house happenings this past week.

While I had been away, Target Land Surveying had visited the place and done a formal site survey. This $1200 piece of magic provides you with the formal dimensions of your lot, house, neighbours place, etc. including elevations (again, both the site and the house itself). Basically it tells you how much contaminated junk you truly own (ok, well in our case that's what it tells us). But, it's an input required by the architects to start designing. So, with that completed on Friday (as I was busy decathaloning), we were ready for meetings this week. Drum roll....and here's what they look like:

So once I returned home to Kris and pup, we had our first "official" meeting with our architect, Ian. We sat down with our fancy new drawing and talked about what we wanted in our new place. We looked through some pictures that Ian had pulled out, and told him what we liked about them, and what we hated. In general, there are a few things that are emerging about what we want: lots of light, lots of storage (bikes, gear, books, booze - you know, the good things in life that are also clutter when not put away), lots of green features, universal design (accessibility), future-proofing (thinking about its use when we have parents, guests, dogs, kids, etc.), and a combination of modern and old design.

Tonight we went over the architect's contract (no we haven't actually signed it yet...but that's a formality really), which requires a few points of clarification. On Wednesday, I'll be sitting down with Brett, Ian and Bruce to go over some scheduling questions along with communications and a few other odds and ends.

And in my spare time, I'll book the hazardous material assessment, which I'm guessing will set me back another $650 or so. That's going to be a heart in throat moment when those details come back as it will be the difference between a pretty dreamy house, versus a bare bones thing.

It's 10:30pm though, Kris has been in bed for over an hour, and while she's up at 5am, I'll be up at 7am, so time to head to bed.

My first blog post

Well - after years of thinking "why do people blog" - I've decided to formally enter the blogosphere with this post. We'll see how this thing turns out, but as it stands, I'd like it to be a bit of a resource to others. It's a way of giving back to those whose blogs have been super useful to me over the years - from finding great coffee shops to reading about folding bikes, I'm indebted to others in this world for helping me learn about the good things in life.

The plan? To put up postings as I manage it about my world. In no particular order, that's likely to be a combination of the following:
- sustainability issues,
- local food (including everything from restaurants to my own Brew-Op),
- biking (bike touring and folding bikes),
- travels (from the Pacific Northwest to the rest of the planet),
- hikes (summer and winter snowshoe adventures),
- kayaking (touring and possibly re-entering the whitewater realm),
- photography
- and other neat things in Vancouver.

Having lived here for two and half years, I'm still getting to know the city and its gems.

So - here we go.